Sunday, January 22, 2012
Dark Comedy of Faulkner
In Pantaloon in Black we get to experience a new facet of Faulkner's writing - his humorous side. Like many of the other students, I at first missed the comedy by being caught up in the tragic story of Rider. We follow a man "better than six feet and weighed better than two hundred pounds"(129) who is grief stricken after the death of his wife Mannie. He throws a log into the river, drinks himself into a stupor, plays a game of dice at the mill then cuts Birdsongs throat after accusing him of cheating. Rider is put in jail but manages to rip out only to be lynched. The story itself seems tragic, but also has many points of comic relief. "Soon he had one of the shovels himself, which in his hands resembled the toy shovel a child plays with at the store, its half cubic foot of flung dirt no more than the light gout of sand a child's shovel would have flung" (129) The image of a very large man using a child sized shovel while franticly digging is very silly given that this grieving man is digging the grave of his wife. "wolfing it -- pease again, alo gelid and cold, a fragment of yesterday's Sunday fried chicken, a few rough chunks of this morning's fried sidemeat, a biscuit the size of a child's cap -- indiscriminate, tasteless." (136-137). Here he's eating like an animal to what seems like garbage, a funny scene although he's eating to cope with the pain of his loss. What does the use of dark humor and slapstick comedy play as a role in the story? Also why do you think this chapter is important in progress Go Down, Moses as a whole?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I, also, had trouble seeing the humor in this story at first, and it was only when we discussed it in class that I finally saw some points that might be considered humorous. It was an interesting vignette for Faulkner to add to the story- the only one as of yet that has only a slight connection to the McCaslin family. Yet for me it was useful in deciphering Faulkner's characters. Through the eyes of the white man, Rider was an animal who completely disrespected his wife by going to work the next day- yet we know that this was the only way for Rider to cope with his loss. The same white man's treatment of his wife, his ideas about Rider, and Rider's thoughts and actions regarding this helped give me a baseline for the racial relationships throughout the whole book. Not having found the story funny at all, I'm still having trouble identifying the purpose of the humor.
ReplyDeleteTo me, Falkner is further enhancing the darkness of the white supremacy over blacks with his "humor." As Jo said, in the white man's eye, Rider is an animal. The white man dehumanizes the black man so immensely, it is hard for us to even imagine. Therefore, Faulkner wants us to try to see this humor from the white man's perspective to make the attitude toward blacks seem even more immoral. As we realize that a white man would see this situation as humorous, the cruelness toward Rider sharpens even further, and we sympathize Rider even more.
ReplyDeleteFor me, this change in Faulkner's writing style marks a turning point for the reader. These dulling perspectives voiced through Rider and through the deputy pose a question that someone brought up in class, which is, who are we supposed to relate to and sympathize with? Through the eyes of the deputy we see Rider portrayed as an animal that is so far removed from humans that he can't even grieve the passing of his wife "His wife dies on him. All right. But does he grieve? He's the biggest and busiest man at the funeral. Grabs a shovel before they even got the box into the grave they tell me, and starts throwing dirt onto her faster than a slip scraper could have done it." (pg.148). However through Rider's monologues we see a man who is grieving SO deeply and who remains so haunted that he must never be still long enough to grieve. It is only at the end of the story that the readers realizes that the deputy's entire story has been told over the dinner table as his wife cooks dinner, and her only response to Rider's gruesome murder is, "I think if you eat any supper in this house you'll do it in the next five minutes. I'm going to clear this table then and I'm going to the picture show." (pg.152). This cold, detached demeanor of the deputy's wife only draws the reader closer to Rider as Katherine said. And as readers we realize that to the white people of his community, Rider's death is nothing more than a lazy discussion over dinner that doesn't even deem a response.
ReplyDeleteThe comedy in this story was difficult for me to find as well at first glance. However, having read over the story again, the underlying comedy is a very creative way of portraying the fact that, for white people at that time, discriminating and dehumanizing black people was as ordinary as any other daily activity. The last few pages is where I found the most obvious form of "comedy". For the sheriff and his wife, discussing the lynching of Rider at the dinner table is the equivalent of a family today discussing how their childrens' day at school was. On page 152, the wife says "I think if you eat any supper in this house you'll do it in the next five minutes. I'm going to clear this table then and I'm going to the picture show." Faulkner shows the reader the perspective of the white family and how they consider mistreatment of blacks to be appropriate because they do not know how else to live. This, for me, evoked even more feelings of anger and disbelief and was a very effective change in tone.
ReplyDeletePantaloon in Black is certainly an anomaly in Go Down, Moses because it is the only story so far that does not contain a McCaslin as a character. In fact, this story is barely related at all to the rest of the book. So, what role does it play? Well, for one, it's the first time in the novel that we get a story from the point of view of a repressed black man. All of the other stories are either about people of color that are somewhat respected (like Lucas), or are stories that may have repressed African-Americans in them, but aren't from their points of view (like Tomney's Turl in Was). Perhaps the reason Faulkner decided to make this story from a non-McCaslin perspective is that he wants to show that this sin't something that would happen to the McCaslins. Maybe his whole point is that the McCaslins don't treat African-Americans as poorly as everyone else; we have certainly seen evidence of this so far. As for the humor, I'm not really sure there is any. I mean, if you search hard enough, like we all had to here, you can find humor in anything. I think the title of this story is Pantaloon in Black for reasons of pure irony. Because, put shortly, the story is not funny.
ReplyDeleteAs others have said, I had a lot of trouble finding the comedy within this story. It was difficult for me to read (as most of Faulkner is for me) mostly because as I was trying so hard to find the comedy I could only concentrate on its desperation. Though this story has elements of a comedy, I don't think it is a comedy, even if a tragic one. However, I did think that it was a nice addition to the story. I definitely agree with Peter when he says that this story was written to see the perspective directly from a black man during this time. I also think that it serves as a great marking place in the history of the book. Even though Faulkner writes throughout generations and often without a set chronology, there is definitely a shift in the novel. After this story, Sam Fathers's character is introduced and the focus, as well as some themes, shift. I believe that Faulkner strategically put Pantaloon in Black in this situation to turn the tables.
ReplyDelete